Shadow Empire - Mad Max meets Operation Barbarossa

Am I the only one who routinely runs into terrible money issues early in the game? Really, before I have made any decisions that would seem to have an impact on inflow and outflow of money. I might have a couple council adminstrators that, in theory, I did not have to hire. But I have not given any raises to anyone, yet the only way to keep above zero is to sell resources frequently – if that is even possible.

I’m curious as to strategies.

What type of planet are you playing on?

I’ve tried a variety of them. Not sure that I have noticed all that much of difference in this regard, but maybe I am missing something.

A lot of your income comes from your citizens.

On something like a moon start, it can be really easy to struggle financially as your cities start out very small.

Also, if you’re nationalising your private economy assets, then you’re taking on the payment of those workers, which can have an impact as well!

I rarely privatize anything, now that the truck station is working reasonably well. But I do often accept relatively low citizen worlds. Maybe I should just re-roll until it starts higher pop.

Yeah, and don’t be afraid to reduce wages and/or don’t appoint too many council members until you’ve got the cash for their wages.

If you can get a recycling point up and running, then you can usually work the market to sell rare metals to cover a lot of costs too (same with an ice mine on a waterless world).

And that Boom Town fate card is suddenly super useful on a low pop world! Magic population!

Rare metal sales for me have been a must, usually every three turns when prices are high. A veritable ATM machine.

Yeah, that is what I tend to do. But it seemed to me that my needing to do this probably meant I was doing something basic wrong.

Nah. I took it as modeling a likely post-apocalyptic economy – where leaders are scrounging for resources and capital, and where selling what you don’t need to finance what you do need is essential.

My current 1.0.4 Beta 9 game. Started it on Beta 7 with planet settings that gave me a Siwa, with Alien life and lots and lots of zones. Also, 7 Majors.

About 60 turns in and just mopping up the last of the minors in my bit of the planet, then it’s a case of figuring out how to engage the other Majors without getting dogpiled!

Also, this is the first game where I’ve actually given attention to the unit models and design and how the rolls work and how it ties in with battlefield testing. Another system that I’ve always known is there, but now I’m actually trying to actively use! (my first attempt to create a medium tank was awful. I didn’t even bother building on it, just made a fresh new design which was at least medium okay!)

That’s a fun game you’ve got going. Let us know how it proceeds! And yes, the model system is pretty neat!

My main issue now is that I’m running up to the end of my logistics range, and I don’t have enough people in the new zones at my borders to run the truck stations!

(Made some new, small zones to counter the administrative strain that was crushing my main city)

Time for some colonists…

Oh, you can make zones or change their size/borders?

Yeah, the right-click menu has an option that lets you repaint zone hexes and the menu on the right has a New Zone button that you can use to nominate somewhere as a new zone.

Interesting, thanks for the info! Logistics is still the part of the game that is proving to be the biggest roadblock. I find the UI to be a little unhelpful in identifying what the issues are and/or how to resolve them. I’m sure it’ll come with more time with the game. I ran into major issues last game with an enormous zone, and then took over a second and third zone, and everything was getting bogged down with no supply. So knowing I can manipulate zone boundaries might help!

Vic’s new “pull” system in the 1.04 betas has made supply an easier beast imho.

I find that the bottlenecks view gives me an idea about where the issues currently are, then the Preview button lets me see where the trucks are and aren’t going to. Usually solvable with more/bigger truck stations and/or supply bases to help those trucks go that bit further.

I like to get rail lines set up between my largest cities to carry most of the weight of transporting goods into and out of them so that the truck lines aren’t crushed and can still deliver goods to assets or troops that need them.

edit: I’m only using Traffic Signs on these beta builds when I know that I’m going to do a mass strategic move in the next turn and so want to ensure a reserve of logistics on my route

Yep, not only can you change zone boundaries, but you can also chop up huge zones by creating new ones inside or next to them and then rearranging the zone boundaries, hex-by-hex. To create a new zone, you just need an asset in a hex, and then I think you right-click in the hex to create the zone? (I don’t remember without the game in front of me.) Anyway, it’s good to do this if administrative strain gets above 20% or so. Manual section 5.3.4 has more details.

I also was skittish about doing this the first time; what if I mess it up? But I’ve never regretted carving a new zone out of an old one.

It’s in the Right-Hand Panel. You can found a new zone on any hex where you own an asset and which is more than 5 hexes from an existing zone city.

Building a Farm and/or a Truck Station and then founding the new zone on top of that is a good start, especially if you build that asset on top of a Free Folk settlement for ease of population growth!

So if I understand correctly, creating a new zone will help with logistics issues? How does that work – because then you have a new SHQ from which those wonderful little LIS points emanate?

And – are there other reasons to carve up a zone?

There’s also a check box on the construct menu to found a new zone when building a rural asset.

Zones start gaining inefficiencies when they get too big. This is usually reflected in your urgent issues report. What the actual effect of this is unclear, but I expect it’s a malus on all sorts of things within the zone.
Each city has its own zone, even if it’s only one hex in size.

Zones are different then SHQs. One SHQ can and should serve many zones. Creating a new SHQ is a big deal, as it will have its own stockpile, attached military units, and administer multiple zones. You generally only create them when you have a fairly sprawling empire.

The way goods move around, they go from an asset/unit, to the zone City, and then to the SHQ, as well as vice versa. So if you have 12 cities, all of them are sending their excess to the national stockpile at the SHQ, which puts a big strain on your logistics system. Having multiple SHQs means having multiple stockpiles. They will exchange with each other as well so they need beefy logistics links between them. But having multiple allows you to kind of have a hub and spoke system for goods moving around. This is especially critical for replacement troops which consume quite a bit of logistics points.